Bought out our Nissan Lease - VERY difficult!

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Mid January 2020, we leased a 2019 Sentra. Previous model year - I know. Typical of a Nissan lease deal back then, little down, little monthly. The buyout on it was $9800. At the time, both of us were commuting into the office daily, so we never really planned on keeping it. Well the thing happened and my fiance was able to work from home permanently ... the job would have been full remote anyway in 2021 after 2 years of employment.

We didn't put many miles on the car in 2020. At the end of the year it only had 3500 miles on it. Last year, I ended up putting a lot of miles on it to go see my father in the hospital. We weren't really sure we were buying it, so I figured free miles at better fuel economy than anything I owned. Then our house flooded in August of 2021 so I sold the Subaru to get the equity out of that to move on to something a bit higher in elevation. Started driving the Sentra a lot more. Any time we take a longer trip we take the Sentra. When I had the Grandma Keith down for a few weeks to replace the engine, it was our only good vehicle.

It's not a great car for an enthusiast I'm sure - but i have grown to like the CVT. The seats aren't terrible. I don't mind the way the CVT works, especially in traffic. The Grandma Keith drives me nuts right at around 9-12 MPH because it will just constantly shift 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2. Fuel economy is baffling in this thing. I had a few trips where the computer was reading 52 MPG going out to my parents. Hand calculated it multiple times and I can consistently hit high 40s. That's more than my old Focus. Port injection. Rear drums with a cable operated parking brake. Not a bad commuter!

I was planning on paying cash for it by just getting a certified check from my bank. Unfortunately, due to some ... real estate issues ... I still own my old house. So we had to finance and I didn't quite feel comfortable dropping that much money out of my savings to buy a car. We didn't want to let it go because then we'd be left only with my Grandma Keith. F-350 is down with a head gasket, Jeep only turns right and has only rear brakes. Our credit is still great. The car itself is worth $19500 . 15000 miles. According to the bank. No issues getting a loan. Perfect.

However, dealing with the Nissan dealers is the hard part. We've been trying for 3 weeks. Finally did it last night. Dealer 1 straight up would not work with us. They were more than happy to process an early lease return and get us into another lease, but buying the lease was something they just were not too interested in dealing with. I'm a base model kinda guy and they didn't have any Versas on the lot so ...

We tried dealer 2. Dealer 2 was being a little better about it. They seemed to be entertaining the idea of doing it, but were being very difficult in getting us the paperwork. Im pretty sure they were trying to get us to fold and just turn the car in - again, they would buy it from Nissan for $9800 and drop it on the lot for $19500. There was an identical one to ours but with 30000 miles for sale at a dealer near my work for $22000 a few weeks ago.

I'm not sure what was so difficult about producing a purchase agreement and buyout paperwork. And transmitting it to the bank when they were asking.

Then it happened. "Well you know we work with 36 banks and can get you great financing, you should look into that". NOPE. That didn't sit well with me. I promptly exclaimed to him that I know that there are laws against that and that unless paperwork was produced , I'd be calling the state Attorney General's office and reporting their fraudulent behavior. Things changed and the paperwork was ready for pickup in 20 minutes. Once we got that, the rest of the process was easy.

Now that it's ours, it's getting the body filled with oil. Oil spray underneath as well. When spring rolls around I'll order $200 of trans fluid for it and OEM pan and cartridge filters for the trans. That seems to be the trick to avoid having the trans fall out by 50,000 miles.
 
Going to the dealer was your big mistake. They don't own the car, the finance company does, either Nissan's or yours. No need to deal with anyone else but them.

My Honda dealer tried the same shenanigans when we wanted to buy our leased Civic. The sales rep told us it would cost over $2000 just in inspection and handling fees because they needed to get it back first for some (really no) reason. It was all BS.

After doing some research we went directly to Honda Finance and they just told us we just owed the agreed-upon value of the car when we signed the lease... and that was it. It really felt like we were doing something wrong because it was so easy after the dealer made it seem like it was this long complicated process when all it was was an opportunity to fleece us out of more money.
 
Going to the dealer was your big mistake. They don't own the car, the finance company does, either Nissan's or yours. No need to deal with anyone else but them.
Well, sort of. If you leased from the manufacturer's finance company the dealer is heavily involved. In some cases technically they have the right of first refusal on the buyout, though I've never heard of that actually happening.

I wonder if you contacted a bank or credit union and asked them for a loan to buy the car out, if they would handle all the paperwork? When you have the cash anyway you could then pay off the loan right away.
 
After doing some research we went directly to Honda Finance and they just told us we just owed the agreed-upon value of the car when we signed the lease... and that was it. It really felt like we were doing something wrong because it was so easy after the dealer made it seem like it was this long complicated process when all it was was an opportunity to fleece us out of more money.
Same here. I've bought two or three cars off lease and dealt directly with the finance company. Dealer was never involved. The terms were clearly laid out in the lease agreement. All I had to do is fill out some paperwork and send it back to the finance company with a check. Pink slips arrived within a month.

Scott
 
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Not a bad driving. car Looks like slightly shrunken Altima - if they are't side by side.

Its been demonstrated that the Valvoline CVT fluid works as well or better than the OE. Do that change at ambient and put in the qty that came out. No need for Genuine Nissan Fluid.

Ramnlings ... Before I bought that Honda Fit impersonator, a 2014 Versa Note (came with junk engine or China filter leading to junk engine) I test drove a Sentra at the time. It had great seats and handled better than a BMW 318. (I know I usually commute at 11/10ths, often drifting the Interstate on-ramps from one kerb to the other ). I would have bought that but for the manual transmission linkage - or possibly the trans proper - was terrible, unusable. It appears with these "commodity cars" slapped together at the speed of light in Aguascalientes, you have to drive a few from the lot herd then pick the best one. Surprising is the variation in build and drive feel - in the same model!
Good that you accidentally avoided the new Versa. Before I got my Ford, test drove one and it was horrid. Likely one of the worst modern cars I had driven - and I am very tolerant of cheap commuters. But this is 80's Renault Alliance cheesehead quality coming out of Mexico.
renault alliance.jpg
 
Unfortunately Nissan leases have to be bought out through a dealer. No choice to go around them.


I wonder if you contacted a bank or credit union and asked them for a loan to buy the car out, if they would handle all the paperwork? When you have the cash anyway you could then pay off the loan right away.

We went to the credit union a while ago and got approved for the loan. They were just being difficult sending the info to the bank or us so the loan could be issued.

Once the other house closes and I get my check , we're paying the loan off.
 
Not a bad driving. car Looks like slightly shrunken Altima - if they are't side by side.

Its been demonstrated that the Valvoline CVT fluid works as well or better than the OE. Do that change at ambient and put in the qty that came out. No need for Genuine Nissan Fluid.

But this is 80's Renault Alliance cheesehead quality coming out of Mexico.
View attachment 127672

Renault plays a part in Nissan now right ?

I'm not sure how important color is. I want the best performing fluid there is that has the right Color
 
Unfortunately Nissan leases have to be bought out through a dealer. No choice to go around them.
I'd still contact Nissan to give them the names of all (3) dealers and the shenanigans they tried on you.

I suspect there's no shortcut or better way to process a lease buyout with a Nissan other than going directly to the "finance" person, making sure to bypass the sales folks. You'll still probably be at the bottom of their to-do list though, just like I felt when I used my credit union's financing direct vs having the dealer finance it. Seems like I had to wait longer than I should have for them to process my paperwork.
 
The lease is a legal contract. If they don't let you buy out for the amount specified in the lease they are breaking the law.
The lease agreement/contract is between the "person" and "Nissan Finance" or whatever their name is. Dealerships are not a party to this agreement, in fact, dealerships are privately-owned business. Yes, they do work with Nissan and from the sounds of it, Nissan makes them act as their agent in these transactions but I believe legally they still can turn away the customer.
 
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